


You and I in Splendid Isolation

by thegoodreverend



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: I don’t know what this is, M/M, Protective Aziraphale, They make An Effort fellas, Wing Kink, World’s slowest burn continues in the world’s calmest smolder, a character study?, fun with fluid angel anatomy, light angst followed by domestic adjustment, mostly aziraphale’s Pov, needy crowley, plot starts on the bus ride back to London, still pretty heavy on the demisexuality, the ineffable husbands retire, two immortal idiots settling down I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-19 09:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19353757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegoodreverend/pseuds/thegoodreverend
Summary: Aziraphale, for as many books as he’s read, isn’t sure he has the words to explain the vastness of his feeling, the burden of denying something so all-encompassing. He’d need years to do that. Decades, maybe. Now isn’t the time even for silence because they have important things to do, but he can’t bring himself to break whatever’s happening between them. He’d stand staring at Crowley until they turned to stone. Until Heaven and Hell came to punish them with whatever cruel and unusual means they’d come up with.(A story in which an angel and a demon survive, Crowley abruptly moves in, and Aziraphale learns about what matters.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been hit hard by the feelings, folks. I’ve loved these idiots since I was ten, and it’s been a real thrill to see the fandom just explode and an extra huge thrill to see the fandom supported by the creators. To be honest, I read book!Aziraphale exactly how he’s portrayed in the show, (Michael Sheen’s acting is just so cute it’s hard to see what a bastard he is, but by god it’s there) and the biggest change I see in Crowley is that his primary motivation seems to be Aziraphale now, which like... how is that not a perfect adjustment. So this is very unashamedly a TV piece, because I need that emotional shit like water. 
> 
> So. Here’s this. Unbeta’d, probably a few bad tense changes, and mostly just sappy garbage about Aziraphale admitting he’s got feelings for one (1) anxious demonic plant terrorizer.

Aziraphale has spent next to no time in Crowley’s flat. He finds it cold and off-putting, the beautiful plants and the few items of sentimental and historical value he pretends not to recognize aside. He’s told Crowley as much - with its grey, flat planes and sterile surfaces and sparse but ostentatious furniture, it wasn’t a home. It wasn’t even particularly Crowley. It was what Crowley wanted people to see him as and Aziraphale knew him better than that. It was ominous and impersonal, and it made the angel uncomfortable. Crowley probably designed it that way and laughed about it when it gave people the chills.

The angel hadn’t wanted to get off the bus but they couldn’t keep driving around London forever, no matter how reassuring it was to feel the demon pressed against his side, no matter how comforting it was to grasp the hand that had been placed palm-up on his thigh without comment. They had to plan, and the longer they kept the driver the more noticeable this minor demonic miracle would become, and the less time they’d have to do it. So he followed Crowley off the bus when it stopped and said nothing, and now here he is, staring down the harsh modernity of a flat that is inexplicably burdened with a sense of sorrow and loss.

The prior level of coldness is nothing compared to what it feels like now.

His partner - because certainly they’re more than just friends and counterparts now, aren’t they, after something like what they just did? - enters the flat exhausted but without hesitation, like nothing is out of the ordinary. Like it isn’t eerily quiet, like it isn’t so sad that it’s suffocating, like it isn’t accompanied with the overwhelming stink of fear as they get to the living room. Crowley very purposefully doesn’t look at the floor as he takes a wide step over the threshold, leaving Aziraphale to eye the sludgy pile of demon he’s avoided. Aziraphale looks at the remains, and the empty discarded bucket, and the first thing he wants to do is clean it away because by God that could have been Crowley and he doesn’t like that thought at all.

But they don’t have time, and a miracle might give them away.

“What happened?” Aziraphale asks. Crowley doesn’t turn - he’s busy pouring whiskey. The angel flicks his eyes to the desk, where Crowley has set his sunglasses, and thinks he might want to cry, thinks that he’s not ready for the very last of Crowley’s walls to come tumbling down around them. He’s seen that already - seen Crowley broken and tired and giving up, glasses off at the airfield. He’s not ready to see it again.

“Hastur and Ligur paid a visit, right before I went to collect you. Didn’t get both of them, unfortunately. Just Ligur.”

“And you did… this? How, I - oh. Oh. My thermos.”

“Told you I wasn’t going to do anything stupid with it. I used gloves and everything, angel, it was perfectly safe.”

Aziraphale pushes aside the sad feeling and steps over the mess. It doesn’t matter who that feeling came from, if there’s a demon somewhere out there mourning his friend like Aziraphale might have been mourning Crowley. Decades ago he would have told himself that it didn’t matter because demons certainly couldn’t feel love so it couldn’t have been from Hastur, but he knows better now. Now, it doesn’t matter because they had been here to hurt Crowley, and if they’d managed to do it Aziraphale is fairly certain he’d have hunted down his fiery sword for the sole purpose of smiting one of the two foul beasts just to torture the other, which was very Wrathful of him. He doesn’t suppose that matters now, though. He’s already staring down utter oblivion.

“He must be very angry with you,” he says instead of anything else, and Crowley scoffs.

“Hastur? Of course, but when isn’t he.”

“They’ll want to destroy you.”

“Hate to break it to you, angel, but they’ll be wanting to destroy both of us. Your side and mine. Traitors, remember?”

Aziraphale hums, the kind of noise that implies he knows very well but was simply saying. He’s distracting himself, now, as he walks around the living room. He eyes discarded sheets of paper. Beautiful pictures of celestial bodies ripped from a book. Regret sits heavy in his stomach, and he lets his fingers trace over the eagle lectern he’s never mentioned he recognized as he looks down at a red cluster of stars.

“I helped build that one,” Crowley says quietly, and Aziraphale feels a glass touch the back of his hand. He takes it and sips whiskey.

“It’s beautiful.”

Crowley hums. Aziraphale feels the lightest shift on the back of his arm, because Crowley is standing close beside him and their bodies are brushing as the demon breathes, and he can clearly see himself turning and burying his face in Crowley’s neck. He won’t, but he wants to, more than he’s ever wanted it. He wants to embrace him and fall in to bed with him and sleep forever, although he’s never seen the appeal of sleep before. He sees it now. A calm eternity next to Crowley’s comforting presence sounds much, much more enticing than what they’re bound to be up against.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” Aziraphale says, and he doesn’t look away from the picture. Would they be in the same position if he’d said yes - if he’d run with Crowley when he’d offered the first time. Or even the second time. Maybe they would have hunted them down as traitors then, too, and Aziraphale feels his eyes begin to water. His chest feels tight, and his throat aches, and he feels something new.

He feels hopeless.

“Naw,” Crowley drawls dismissively and sniffs, and he hears ice clink as the demon drinks. “Wouldn’t have worked out anyway, us running off. At least this way we got to save the world. Well. Lend a hand. Naw, angel, wouldn’t give that up for anything.”

Aziraphale laughs, although it’s more of a strangled huff. He wants to tell Crowley that he’s awfully nice for a demon, but he can’t muster it. He’ll cry if he opens his mouth, and then where will they be?

“I already lost you, and I didn’t care for it,” Crowley says, and he lowers his voice as if they’ll be overheard. “I’m not doing it again. We’ll figure it out. Always do.”

Aziraphale lets himself look at Crowley, much like he’s still letting his fingers linger on the lectern, and finds that Crowley has been watching his hand. A week ago Aziraphale might have lowered it, but he doesn't bother with that now. He leaves his hand against the stone and lets Crowley stare. Lets him know that he understands. Aziraphale understands that he’s the sun to Crowley’s earth and hears his own panicked threats over and over; _think of something or I’ll never speak to you again_. Worse than any flaming sword.

When Crowley’s stare flicks over to his face, Aziraphale wants to speak, but can’t. There’s too much unsaid, so much he’d like to say, and he doesn’t know if any of it matters now. Crowley must already know. Even exhausted as he looks, as Crowley tilts his head and meets his gaze unblinkingly Aziraphale knows he does. He looks at him the same way he always has, if not a little more broken down. That same quiet affection, affection that the angel had been hesitating to acknowledge in his demonic counterpart and firmly denied having himself. Now, though, it didn’t matter what he felt. Time was short, and he had no way to say what he wanted to. Once they made a plan, after it was enacted, he could tell Crowley all the things he never had. He could process the look on Crowley’s face as he’d told him he’d lost his best friend, the way he held Agnes Nutter’s book and cried _souvenir_. He could write Crowley entire novels about how he’d been so good at denying his feelings when all of Crowley’s niceness had been easily played off, until that night in the middle of a war surrounded by rubble from a church and an eagle lectern, when their fingers had brushed as Crowley handed him his books and then there was no denying anything.

Aziraphale, for as many books as he’s read, isn’t sure he has the words to explain the vastness of his feeling, the burden of denying something so all-encompassing. He’d need years to do that. Decades, maybe. Now isn’t the time even for silence because they have important things to do, but he can’t bring himself to break whatever’s happening between them. He’d stand staring at Crowley until they turned to stone. Until Heaven and Hell came to punish them with whatever cruel and unusual means they’d come up with.

“Let’s have a look at that paper,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale swallows thickly. “Two occult beings ought to be able to decipher the mad ramblings of an old crone, eh?”

“Ethereal,” he replies without any bite, and reluctantly moves his hand from the lectern.


	2. Chapter 2

“Seems practical to me. I mean, just in case anybody gets any ideas. You know, I watch your back while you stuff your face with food, you watch mine while I sleep. That kind of thing. No Hastur, no Gabriel, no problem.”

Aziraphale’s heart, which he doesn’t need but by now has developed a mind of its own, beats wildly within his breast as he leans down to speak with Crowley through the window. Crowley, who has his eyebrows raised and his mouth pursed like he’s just suggested he and Aziraphale might go grocery shopping one time instead of that they might move in together. Like they haven't just miraculously avoided total destruction, like they aren't two expatriates now out in the world left to make their own way after centuries of playing for the opposite team. 

His first impulse is to scoff and deny him, because that’s what he’s been doing for centuries. He knows what will happen, then - Crowley will tell him it was just a suggestion, and spend the next fifty years slowly moving in anyway, and they’ll end up in the same place but take much longer to get here. There’s no point to doing things the same way they always did, not now - not when they’re on their own side. So, nervous and unsure, Aziraphale smiles tightly like he’s still trying not to.

“I suppose you’re right. For safety. Obviously.”

“Obviously. Can’t trust Hell to keep its word, you know.”

“Yes, well, you can’t really trust Heaven to do the same either. As it turns out. So how do you want to…”

“I thought I might just… bring my things over.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t have much. Just plants, mostly. Your upstairs gets decent enough light.”

“I’ll need to clear some things out.”

“I just thought it might be easier, you have so much more, and I’m here most nights anyway. And my flat isn’t really… well, it’s not a home, really, is it? And you like that. That home feeling.”

“I do. I’m afraid you’ll try and reorganize everything upstairs, you’re so frightfully-”

“Tidy?”

“I was going to say obsessive, but tidy as well, yes.”

The corners of Crowley’s lips twitch upwards, and Aziraphale feels his smile turn fond. Maybe, he thinks, they won’t have to talk at all. Maybe they’ve reached the same place - finally, _finally_ \- and now simply have a mutual understanding.

“You should bring your mattress,” Aziraphale says. “I don’t think I’ve slept in my bed since the 1890s, and I know how you like sleeping. It won’t be very comfortable.”

Crowley frowns, so sudden that Aziraphale wants to laugh. “Disgusting, angel. I’m cleaning your home, you’ll need to find a new way to stop people buying your precious books other than dust and the smell of damp.”

“Now Crowley, we said no major miracles. We keep our heads down. That’s what we agreed.”

“We’re making an exception.”

“We are not.”

“Try and stop me,” Crowley says, and the Bentley’s engine roars to life and soon Aziraphale is standing on the sidewalk alone and finds he can’t stop smiling.

Crowley brings his suitcase, along with his cluster of petrified plantlife, two statues, and one framed da Vinci. Aziraphale suspects that he’d have just miracled them into place if there hadn’t been people in the shop, but instead he bursts through the door cursing as he labors dramatically with the eagle lectern.

“What are you _doing_?” Aziraphale says, startled to his feet. His customers all stare awkwardly, and Aziraphale is torn between concerns that Crowley may break his back and that he may smash some very delicate old books.

“Moving, what does it look like!?”

“No, I mean, why didn’t you ask for help? You’ll hurt yourself, carrying on like that!”

“Nonsense, angel, it’s just a heavy son of a bitch, I’m fine.” Crowley carries on loudly, voice strained, cursing as he bumps his hip into a table.

Without further ado, the customers leave the room. Crowley straightens and laughs, shifting the lectern’s weight easily, and Aziraphale breathes a sigh of relief.

“Really, Crowley. There are easier ways to get them out.”

“They seemed immune to your glaring,” he shrugs, and carries on through the shop. Aziraphale shakes his head and listens for his steps up the stairs, and then struggles not to laugh when he hears a louder-than-strictly-necessary noise of disgust.

“Have you ever dusted?” Crowley shouts.

“Sorry, can’t hear you up there!”

“Everywhere’s books, Aziraphale! Everywhere! Where’s your kitchen?”

“What’s that, you want a curry?”

“Aziraphale, _no_ ,” comes the reply, accompanied by hurried footsteps. Aziraphale gets to his feet quickly and grabs his coat, heading for the door.

“And naan? Of course.”

“Not everything is about food, you angelic bastard.”

Aziraphale reaches the door just as Crowley makes it back into the main room, and smiles cheerfully at him. “Yes, but if I have to listen to or watch you shift my precious books around I think I might discorporate, so I’m going to pick up some takeaway. Madras, dear?”

Crowley blinks at him, jaw tense, before he grumbles a “yes”, and Aziraphale smiles and flips the sign to closed before he leaves. He spares a glance at the Bentley before he turns the corner, which is packed so full of plantlife that it looks like it carries a small, mobile, very intimidating jungle, and finds that he’s rather looking forward to sharing a home with such beautiful things.

When he returns he strongly suspects that Crowley has made some additions to the top floor, but he can’t quite remember what it looked like so doesn't know what exactly has changed. He doesn’t spend much time upstairs - his life mostly revolves around the lower level, around his work station and the chair and fireplace and his most favorite first editions. His recollection of the top floor is that the hallways were walkable, but that he had truly utilized very flat surface for books he considered works in progress - ones that needed decent repairing or translation, and which weren’t fit for sale. Not that he would have sold them anyway.

It’s clean now - the hall is clear and the walls look almost freshly painted. Bright light is filtering through the windows, and his books are now in cases and shelves he knows weren’t there before. Crowley’s few personal belongings are placed as subtly as possible so as not to interfere with the rest of Aziraphale’s aesthetic preferences (not that he would have minded if they did, he’ll admit, because they were dear to Crowley and therefor dear to him) and the da Vinci hangs at the end of the hall. His kitchen is full of plants, which are slowly stretching and adjusting to the new angle of the light. He thinks he might have a new stove, and he _knows_ the TV mounted on the wall absolutely isn’t his. 

“A television, Crowley? Really?” He calls, and he can practically feel Crowley sighing down the hall.

“I clean your entire flat and the first thing you do is complain about a TV? Rude. Listen, you’re lucky I didn’t put it down where the comfy chairs are. Compromise, angel.”

“ _Compromise_ ,” Aziraphale mutters.

When he finds his bedroom, he sees Crowley sitting at the foot of his bed with his suitcase open in front of him, staring at Aziraphale’s closet. His brow is drawn, and he runs his fingers over the cuff of a sleeve. There’s dust on his pants and under his nails, and it warms something in Aziraphale to know that he must have done some of the work the human way.

“Forgot to expand the closet while you were at it?” He asks quietly, and smiles when Crowley looks at him.

“No. You didn’t have much in there to begin with. Plenty of room, once I evicted all the moths.”

“There were not moths.”

“There were.”

“Crowley, do you know how long I’ve had these clothes? There aren’t moths.”

“You weren’t here, you don’t know,” Crowley says, petulant and huffing.

Aziraphale chuckles, and while a smile flickers over Crowley’s lips it falls quickly, and Aziraphale wishes that he wasn’t wearing glasses. Now that things are relatively safe, the glasses being off don’t hold the same weight - before, when their absence meant Crowley was giving up, it was different. Now Aziraphale feels like Crowley is trying to hide something about himself, because he knows that he uses them to bolster himself up when he feels weak. They’re a form of security, a crutch for his sense of self and confidence, and under normal circumstances Aziraphale would never want him to take them off if he didn’t feel like he could. But normally Crowley looks smug and sharp, and now his face is oddly serious, and he suspects that there’s a sort of pleading look in his eyes. But it’s important to him that Crowley feels secure, so instead Aziraphale sits beside him and hands him dinner. Crowley takes it and drops his clothing, and begins eating like he won’t stop half-way through and give the rest to the angel.

“Awfully fast,” Aziraphale says after a few minutes, and tries laughing. He knows it comes out nervous, and he can’t bring himself to look at Crowley. “We go from agents of Heaven and Hell respectively, rubbish as we were at it, to… domestic partners, I suppose. All in forty-eight hours. Not to mention the fact that we could have been utterly destroyed. We won’t even have to hide our fraternization now. Not that we were spectacular at it before - you know, Uriel called you my boyfriend. Your boyfriend in the dark glasses, she said.”

“Well, what did you expect. You’re not particularly subtle.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You _bumble_.”

“I do not.”

“You do. Any time I said anything, you’d look at me all lovey and then realize you were breaking a rule and change your tune like somebody was watching.”

“I did _not_.”

“You _did_.”

Aziraphale hears his own voice rise in pitch, flustered. “Well, I - that’s rich, coming from you! _You’re_ the one who proposed the Arrangement in the first place. If anybody was obvious, it was you. What kind of demon runs in to a church to rescue an angel and some old books.”

“Same brand as an angel that gives a flaming sword to a pair of humans instead of does as he’s told, I expect. One who’s bad at his job.”

“You were a terrible demon, playing off all those petty mischiefs like they were real evil.”

“They were long-term plans.”

“They were cop-outs so you didn’t have to hurt anybody.”

“I’m sure plenty of people hurt themselves trying to pry those coins off the sidewalk.”

“You tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.”

“It does. You know, I won’t take the sass from a hedonist like you - how do you justify that?”

“There’s nothing sinful about enjoying oneself, Crowley. Within moderation, of course.”

“Broad definition of moderation.”

“Indeed. It’s a good thing we both quit, isn’t it.”

“Oh, yeah. I like the rules of the team we play for now a lot better.”

Aziraphale feels giddy for a few moments, but when his pleasure fades he realizes that the heavy mood in the room is still there, and he looks everywhere he can that isn’t Crowley before, finally, he can’t look anywhere else. Crowley is watching him carefully, lips pulled in a way not dissimilar to the expression he’d had on his face at the bandstand when Aziraphale had insisted they were over. A fresh wave of guilt floods Aziraphale’s stomach and threatens his appetite.

“Not too fast for you, I hope. The speed I’m moving at.” Crowley says, and it’s not phrased like a question but Aziraphale knows that it secretly is. Something about his tone makes Aziraphale feel tired immediately, like he had standing next to Crowley in his flat the night before their trials. Like he could turn and bury his face in Crowley’s neck and stay that way forever, warm and comforted, and there’s nothing now to distract him from the gravity of their situation. But now, he finds that tiredness strangely reassuring. It means there’s nowhere else to go but the direction they’re heading. He barely even has to consider his words.

“Crowley, my dear boy. I have driven with you through central London doing 90 miles per hour, stood still by your side to stare down Satan himself with nothing but a sword, an engine crank, and a small child, and taken a leisurely stroll into Hell wearing your body. There is no speed at which you can go that is anything other than perfection to me.”

The demon watches him quietly for a few moments, before giving an unreadable shrug and turning back to his dinner. “Well. Suppose we ought to finish up here, so we can break into the wine.”

“Of course. You know, living together now means we’re in very real jeopardy of just being drunk all the time.”

“I spent most of my week at yours drinking anyway, don’t pretend like it’ll be any different,” Crowley scoffs. 


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale wonders if they should talk about things. Probably. They’ve had 6,000 years of misunderstandings and suppressed urges and really, they haven’t said that they’re on the same page; Aziraphale has always tried hard to keep his personal fondness for his partner under his thumb and now he worries that Crowley may not truly understand just how much he cares, not that the demon seems to want to talk about it. He must understand, obviously, because they saved each other. Then they had lunch, and Crowley just sort of… moved in, and that was that. And this was something of a monumental adjustment, especially for two beings who had used a literal contract built around doing each other favors to justify the fact that they enjoyed the other’s company. There were no contracts, now. Just the two of them.

Still, Aziraphale suspects that the conversation will be somewhat heavy, and he’s unwilling to break the mood. Currently he’s reclining in his favorite chair and Crowley is at the tail-end of a rambling rant he barely understands through all his drunken slurring, and Crowley’s glasses have been discarded on a stack of 19th transcendental poetry. Aziraphale knows he must look a mess, that he must be staring at Crowley with such raw affection that it’s almost comical, but he can’t help it. He’s drunk, and Crowley is so precious to him. He’s never felt at liberty to act like it before, at least not without reservation, and now the spigot simply won’t shut off.

“I’m goin’ to bed, angel,” Crowley stands abruptly, lurching forward to his feet unsteadily.

“Oh,” Aziraphale bites back disappointment. “Good night, then.”

“What’ll you do?”

“Well. Read, I should think.”

“‘Course you’re gonna read. ‘Course. You could, you know, read upstairssss,” Crowley hisses and slurs, and shakes his head like that will help him clear it.

“Upstairs as in, in bed? With you?”

“If you don’t want to, ‘s’fine, I just thought… might be nice. Maybe.”

“No, no, it’s not that.”

“Too fast for you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Won’t the light keep you awake?”

“Naw. I can sleep through anything.”

Crowley’s tone is even, but his face looks fragile and desperate. He looks like he might break into a thousand pieces, like it was hard enough to ask for what he wanted but if he has to justify it he might crumble to dust. Aziraphale smiles his softest smile, and hopes it doesn't look as nervous as he’s afraid it might.

“Lead the way, then.”

He’s not sure why his stomach flips as he follows Crowley up the stairs, or why his heart starts threatening to burst through his chest. He’s not sure why his cheeks flush as Crowley drunkenly undresses and crawls into bed naked and without shame, much faster than Aziraphale even though the angel only removes his shoes and waistcoat and suspenders. He’s seen Crowley naked plenty of times, and although it’s been a few hundred years since the last time not much other than his hair has changed. What does it matter if he’s climbing beneath Aziraphale’s sheets instead of sobering up and jumping into the Bentley to go home to a cold modern monstrosity of a flat? Nothing should be different about this, and nothing is, except also everything is and his face feels like it’s on fire.

His hands shake as he turns on the bedside lamp and sees it glint in Crowley’s eyes. His pupils are blown wide as he watches Aziraphale, eyelids heavy and limbs loose, and he’s silent when Aziraphale sits on the bed even though he must see how tense he is. Crowley doesn’t push him to hurry up, doesn’t say anything. Just lets Aziraphale ease back and resettle until his back is up against the headboard and his legs are extended. There’s a book in his lap, but Aziraphale isn’t even sure which one he picked up - he’s too busy being hyper-aware of Crowley watching him. Every inch of his body feels like it’s crawling away from him, and he takes a steadying breath.

“‘S alright, angel?” Crowley slurs tiredly, and Aziraphale feels his fingers toying with the seam of his pants, near his hip.

Aziraphale swallows, and looks down. Crowley is looking up at him, face calm and set but eyes huge and clear and open. The light touch he uses on Aziraphale’s hip, the way he’s looking up, it all makes him look… well, rather sweet. The angel has the strangest urge to reach out and stroke his hair, but he’s not sure what’s allowed in this new phase of their partnership, so he denies the impulse and steadies his body and his voice to something reassuring.

“Of course, my dear.”

Crowley nods. Slowly, although clearly more confident about what the parameters of their relationship should encompass, he moves forward and tucks his forehead against Aziraphale’s thigh. He spares a moment to look up to see if Aziraphale is upset with him for moving (he isn’t, he’s only staring wide-eyed like a frightened rabbit) and then closes his eyes.

For a few moments Aziraphale hears nothing but static, a quiet ring as Crowley shuts his eyes and presses his fingertips against the top of his thigh. He feels as though everything prior to this had existed in a bubble, and now it’s burst and he’s living in another reality entirely. Not that he minds - this is the culmination of a thousand impulses he’s had over the centuries, and as he lowers his hand to Crowley’s hair and strokes he thinks of every time he’s wanted to do the same thing and denied himself and how he can’t regret not doing it before because it feels _so good to do now_. The red strands are soft and thick beneath his fingers, and Aziraphale feels like his heart might be melting. Does Crowley know? Crowley should know.

“You remember, before the Great Flood - you snuck up behind me. Tapped me on the shoulder and then popped around on the other side like the brat you are.”

“I don’t want to think about the Great Flood, angel.”

“No, not the flood. I was just thinking about your hair then. All long and wild, coming lose everywhere. Even with half of it covered.”

“Hm.”

“I’ve wanted to do this since then. I thought I ought to tuck it behind your ear, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was almost a relief to see your hair so short in Rome.”

“You’re embarrassing,” Crowley scoffs, and Aziraphale thinks he can see him blush.

“I know.”

Aziraphale, emboldened, lets his fingers sink to Crowley’s scalp and the demon makes a small noise of contentment he’d never admit to, and so Aziraphale strokes. He runs his fingers over the nape of Crowley’s neck and his shoulders, and as his nerves calm further he thinks this might be the most content he’s ever felt. Crowley falls asleep, warm and pressed against his side, and Aziraphale forgets to open his book entirely.

He reads Crowley instead. Reads every twitch on his face as he sleeps, every freckle on his shoulders, every shadow that moves on his thin body as his lungs expand and contract. He sets the book aside entirely as Crowley shifts and slings his arm over Aziraphale’s lap, his head on his thighs, and swears to himself that he’ll never mention this because Crowley may never do it again if he does. He is very aware, even through the lingering effects of the alcohol, that the vulnerability he’s been shown must never be spoken of. Crowley is displaying a raw and festering wound, his soft underbelly, in the plainest language Aziraphale will ever see it in.

It sinks in, finally, as he’s struggling not to think of this soft and vulnerable Crowley stuck in the depths of the pit and what could have happened if they’d not interpreted Agnes’s prediction correctly, that it’s just the two of them. That two days ago they stood side by side against Good and Evil and saved the world, and that this morning he watched as Crowley-as-Aziraphale was dragged away by his former brothers and sisters, and that having successfully deceived their respective sides they were now free from obligation. That the only constant in his life, the only dependable thing for 6,000 years had been Crowley. That even with his considerable experience and expertise on the subject, he'd never known anything that loved as purely and unassumingly as Crowley loved him. It sinks in that this - Crowley, vulnerable and trusting and asleep in his lap, pliant under his hands - is all he’s ever wanted. He’d burn his own bookshop a thousand times over to keep him, and Aziraphale feels himself begin to cry for reasons he doesn’t understand. Aziraphale thinks that this is infinitely better than Heaven, than Her divine grace, than all the great libraries across all countries and times.

“I love you so, my dear,” he says, and moves his fingers through Crowley’s hair.

The demon sleeps on.


	4. Chapter 4

Crowley, Aziraphale thinks, remembers _everything_.

He’s not sure why he thinks this, exactly, but there’s something about him. Something about the pauses between his mumbled threats at his plants, as he strokes their leaves. Something about the way he looks at Aziraphale’s collection of misprint bibles. As he gazes at Aziraphale at night before he drifts to sleep. In retrospect, there was something about the way he slithered up onto the wall around Eden on the day of the first rain. The longer he spends around Crowley, though, the more solidly believes that Crowley remembers everything before the Fall.

He wonders if they met. They must have. After all, Crowley worked on the stars, and that’s no small job. Aziraphale was a Principality, and back in the day the title was well deserved - he knew almost everybody. It didn’t shock him that he didn’t remember, of course, because he didn’t remember anybody else in Hell either. He supposed that had been an act of kindness on Her behalf - to think, if he had remembered Crowley and they’d loved each other as much as they do now, which Aziraphale suspected they must have, because what he felt was simply too bone-deep. He would have felt that love and lived through watching Crowley suffer and Fall and writhe in the pit. He might have Fallen himself, or maybe just wasted away. Or maybe it wasn’t a kindness. Maybe it just wouldn’t do to pit beings of love against their ex-brethren if they could still remember how much they loved them.

Part of him wants to ask. Most often the urge comes up when Crowley wakes up and blinks tiredly at him, still open and honest and sleepy and making small sounds of contentment as Aziraphale strokes his hair. Something about that open gaze.

It’s been months now since Crowley moved in and the angel has long since stopped pretending he’ll do anything other than watch Crowley when they go to bed, and so he’s started sleeping under the covers with him as it results in the best view of him when he wakes, and during the night he can hold him tightly against his chest. He can smile softly back at him in the morning, when Aziraphale thinks about Crowley scheming to make his way up to the garden from Hell because he’d heard Aziraphale would be posted at the East Gate, and wonders if he’d been working for the past 6,000 years to get them back to this point - back where they were before the Fall. In the mornings, he looks content enough for that to be the case.

Thinking about that breaks Aziraphale’s heart, just a little bit. How long he suffered - Aziraphale would survive that long not being recognized by somebody he loves as much as Crowley. He knows he won’t ever be able to bring himself to confirm if it’s the case.

“Good morning,” Crowley mumbles, and Aziraphale leans forward to kiss him gently.

Kissing is new. Of course, he’s kissed a few humans in his time. He’s even made an Effort for a few of them, infrequent as it was. Aziraphale found that while it was pleasurable, it was rarely worth the considerable energy it took to manipulate his mortal vessel and inspire it to feel the necessary attraction, and it was also rather messy which was quite the negative mark against it. Kissing, likewise, felt pointless with everybody he’d tried it with. They had seemed to enjoy it, though, and Aziraphale had been fond of them and enjoyed their pleasure, and so he’d done it. He wondered, many times, if Crowley had had similar experiences with humans. Or maybe other demons. He had an equally hard time imagining either situation - Crowley’s major sin seemed to be Sloth, and it was Effort with a capital E for a reason..

But kissing Crowley is new. They had tried it on a whim one day, after a particularly indulgent lunch at the Ritz, and Aziraphale had found he enjoyed it. It makes sense, he thinks, because he’s always appreciated sensation. He appreciates kissing Crowley like he appreciates velvet and sushi and creme brûlée, except kissing has the added bonus of putting him close to his favorite thing on the planet. Kissing has the added bonus of intimacy, which Aziraphale finds he craves more and more. He thinks, sometimes, he wants to crawl inside Crowley and never leave.

Kissing is close enough. Crowley hasn’t implied he wants anything more than that, even though - and Aziraphale is stunned to realize this - he would be more than happy to accommodate any request Crowley made on that topic.

“Can we stay in bed?” Crowley mumbles and he presses his mouth to Aziraphale’s jaw.

“I have to open the shop.”

“C’mon, angel, you never sell anything anyway. Let’s stay in bed.”

“You have a fiddle leaf fig at risk of breaking rank.”

Crowley groans. “Selfish bastard plant.”

“Some things respond better to a more tender touch, my darling. It’s sensitive.”

The demon glowers, and Aziraphale smiles knowing that the brief window of morning tenderness has closed. It will open again in the evening, when Crowley becomes needy and wounded-looking.

As it is, he steals another kiss and then flings his legs out of bed. He sleeps naked, always ( _I don’t see the point of pajamas, honestly, what a ridiculous concept_ he’d said) and Aziraphale enjoys watching him get ready from start to finish. From dressing to the way he tries to tame his hair, which is at an awkward length as he grows it out, back into submission. He’s always enjoyed the way he moves, graceful and serpentine, and watching each limb extend and stretch in the morning light, filtered through the sheer curtains, is a beautiful sight. Crowley had been given a good body.

“C’mon, angel,” he sighs. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

He watches Crowley walk with his usual swagger out of the bedroom. Similes as Crowley casts a look he probably thinks is tempting over his shoulder, and then gets up to dress and follow him.

Aziraphale has stopped feeling guilty around the plants. It used to be that sitting in the kitchen with them while they shook and trembled around Crowley’s presence twisted at his heart. He’d started spoiling them, a little, cooing kindly at them behind his partner’s back, until Crowley revealed that they were hamming it up for him, milking him for attention.

“Little prima donnas, the lot of them,” he’d scoffed, casting a baleful glare towards his leafy collection. “As if they don’t get rewarded for giving 110%.”

“Anything less than that, though, and you scream at them. I’ve heard you, Crowley, it’s rather cruel.”

“And easily avoidable, given they do as they’re told. That philodendron got coffee yesterday, Aziraphale, it’s not like I neglect them. They know you for a soft touch and they’re putting on a show. Just watch, give it a week and they’ll stop shaking. So much, anyway.”

“Honestly.”

“Little fear never hurt. Picked it up from Her actually.”

“ _Crowley_.”

“Just think of the garbage disposal like the Great Flood,” he said cheerfully, and Aziraphale balked.

He had been right, of course. Now, their tremble could easily be dismissed as the response to a very drafty room - although it would be a lie if Aziraphale said he didn’t spoil them still, sometimes. Just not as a response to their trembling.

Now he watches a rubber tree shake gently from his seat at their small table as Crowley scrambles eggs, and wonders when Crowley learned to cook. He himself never had, and he’d always been under the assumption that Crowley hadn’t ever touched is kitchen. Of course, that had been before they lived together. Now he knew that Crowley very well could have used his kitchen, and it would still look pristine and unused because Crowley was obsessively clean. He’s spent more than a handful of evenings watching Crowley anxiously scrub every inch of the top floor.

Crowley had always done very poorly with anxiety, which Aziraphale thought might surprise people. After all, he was the nervous-looking one, the one who bumbled over his feelings. It was all very surface-level, though, wasn’t it? He was much more likely to be utterly oblivious to them and steamroll right over everything, unknowingly cold. Crowley, sharp and mean as he looked, fretted over everything. Crowley spent 6,000 years pining. Crowley healed injured animals on the side of the road, brought dead birds back to life after they crashed into the windows he kept crystal clear, gripped his angel’s arm every time they separated like he thought he might return to find Aziraphale abducted. Kept a thermos of holy water in his house for decades just in case.

Aziraphale had accepted that their time was limited, that one day Hell and Heaven would learn about their deception and come for them again, and on that day there would be nothing other than a reckoning, and he sat with it like he thought humans sat with the concept of death. Although not all humans sat well with death, either. Some humans sat with it like Crowley, who also knew their time was limited, and who sometimes worked himself into an anxious frenzy and deep-cleaned every surface he could find before falling asleep for three days straight.

Really, Aziraphale thinks, if it wasn’t for his somewhat bullish sense of righteousness, he’d have made a better demon than Crowley.

He’s served bacon and eggs and toast and tea. Crowley never eats breakfast - rarely eats at all - and like the heathen he is drinks coffee first thing instead of tea. Aziraphale clucks at him every time, and Crowley smiles around the rim of his mug, just like he does this morning. Something seems different, though - something about him seems brighter than normal, honest. His grin is broad and reaches all the way up to his eyes. And then it strikes him - Crowley has yet to put on his glasses.

Beside them, several plants don’t bother trembling. Whether they’re foolhardy or on to something, Aziraphale isn’t sure.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Effort is here, my dudes. Not too graphic, but here. Also the longest chapter. Also, I just got off a plane and changed time zones, and I’ve been awake for 22 hours so this is like... considerably less edited than other chapters. Let me know if something’s unclear!
> 
> Like the tags say, fluid supernatural entity anatomy (read: penis in vagina sex).

“We’ll have to leave one day, you know,” Crowley says.

“Obviously, we’re not staying in Tadfield for any-”

“No, you dolt. I’m talking about home. About the bookshop.”

“Oh. Yes, well. I’ve handled that before, you know. Wear a disguise for a few years, come back as my predecessor’s uncannily similar son. It’s worked quite well.”

“What I’m saying is, you can’t very well do that with me there.”

Aziraphale blinks at the cottage ceiling. He hasn’t thought about that. “I suppose I can’t. It’d be very strange, for us to go away and come back over and over, together. Sons of the men who were the previous owners and also partners.”

“Oh, would it?” Crowley says sarcastically. Aziraphale ignores it.

“And I can’t very well miracle attention away from us. It used to be I could just make people accept it. But not now.”

“No. Not at all keeping our heads low.”

“Well, we’ve got some time, don’t we?”

“Few years at least. You’ve already been there a while.”

Aziraphale sighs and watches the ceiling, unwilling - for now - to think about it. Beside him, Crowley shifts uncomfortably, and he begins to suspect he won’t have a choice.

“Still…”

There it is. Aziraphale closes his eyes, and tries not to sigh again. Crowley continues to shift until he turns and throws an arm over the other’s chest like it will make up for the fact that he’s continuing to press his point. Aziraphale won’t admit that it sort of does.

“We ought to consider where we want to move to. Tadfield just made me think.”

The arm didn’t make up for the conversation, Aziraphale decides, and responds quickly. “I _don’t_ want to move to Tadfield.”

Crowley turns his face against Aziraphale’s neck. “But you already have friends here. Anathema would love your books. She’d bring Newt over all the time.”

“That’s precisely the issue, Newton… I mean, Newton is a very sweet young man,” Aziraphale starts and then finds despite his best effort, he can’t quite reverse his track. The damage is done. “But… you must admit he’s just a _little_ bit terrible.”

He feels Crowley’s grin widen against his throat, feels the tips of his canines press against his flesh. And then Aziraphale realizes that Crowley is teasing him.

“You don’t want to move to Tadfield, do you?” The angel grimaces.

“You made that assumption yourself, I never said I did.”

“But you let me think it.”

“I just wanted to see what you’d say. Listen, I see the pitying looks you give him when he opens his mouth. Oh, poor you, you small stupid human - that’s the look you make. I love seeing you get all superior.”

“Crowley! You’re always so _mean_ to me, making me feel guilty about things like this,” he whines. “I never would have said under normal circumstances.”

“I am very, very cruel to you.”

“Very. I don’t know how I put up with you.”

“I’m not sure, myself.”

Aziraphale can’t stop another heavy sigh as Crowley straightens up, repositioning so he can look Aziraphale in the eye as the angel turns his head to the side. Anathema hadn’t offered them a room with two separate beds, and Aziraphale had been shocked to find that she’d assumed they were partners when she’d met them. He’d asked Crowley if it really seemed that way to everybody Before (as he had more recently begun to call that time, as the Apocalypse hadn’t happened but things had certainly changed) at which point Crowley had scoffed and said, everybody but you. Aziraphale had felt a little guilty - he doesn’t feel guilty now, though, looking over Crowley’s face.

The angel shakes his head fondly. “I suppose I’m just going to be stuck with you forever.”

“Absolutely.”

“What a hard time for me.”

Crowley’s smile softens into something small and deep and warm, and Aziraphale closes his eyes when he feels his partner’s thumb on his cheek.

“Do you want to stay in England?” Crowley asks, voice quiet.

“I like it here. And I don’t want to leave my books.”

“I’d never make you leave your books, angel.”

Aziraphale hums, and opens his eyes again to to find that Crowley is still watching him carefully. His eyes have gone soft around the corners where they’re usually sharp and devious, full of that bone-deep familiarity that scares Aziraphale a little - the sheer enormity of it. The demon’s hand is warm against his cheek, and he turns his face into his palm to have something to distract himself from the intensity.

“You’re not so bad, for a demon.”

“I know, you’re a terrible influence on me.”

“I love you dreadfully, you know,” Aziraphale says, for no reason other than that it feels important at that moment. He looks over again, as if Crowley’s gaze has gotten somehow less intense. “I always have, I suspect.”

Crowley says nothing. He just lets his hand drift back and strokes Aziraphale’s hair, and his eyes go shiny and bright, and he mumbles against Aziraphale’s lips when he kisses him.

“I think I’d like to make an Effort,” he says, and anticipation flickers like a spark through Aziraphale’s stomach. “I want to be close to you. I want to be part of you. If I could I’d strip my flesh and feed it to you piece by piece until you consumed me entirely.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, and he shivers, and isn’t sure what else to say to something like that.

In previous attempts with humans he'd been fond of, it just felt like physical exertion, and he’d really had to concentrate on keeping his anatomy correct as unlike Crowley he rarely kept anything between his legs on a regular basis (Crowley explained he did it because of how his pants fit, and now he was so used to it he forgot it was there - Aziraphale didn’t quite believe him). It felt like running five miles, and the exertion outweighed the elation at the end. Aziraphale should have realized it would feel different with Crowley. With Crowley, it feels like divine revelation.

Every ounce of his being goes into the Effort, and Crowley returns it in kind. When Aziraphale slides his hand between Crowley’s legs he finds he’s already far ahead and he’s lead them down an unexpected street, so the first thing Aziraphale does is unexpectedly slip his fingers inside his cunt. Now they sweat and writhe, and Aziraphale struggles to keep quiet although he’s ultimately successful at it. Emotion flickers over Crowley’s face as he cuts off a moan and he suspects that at home he’ll demand to hear every noise that Aziraphale’s managing to suppress, but now it doesn’t matter. Now, Crowley straddles Aziraphale’s lap and rolls his hips, his eyes dark and hair curling into his face and wild. He has his hands braced on Aziraphale’s chest and keeps leaning forward like he wants to press their bodies together. It means less contact elsewhere, and he decides against it again and again. Instead, Aziraphale lifts his hips to meet him, runs his hands over the body he loves so dearly, strokes his clit with a thumb, and watches Crowley’s lip tremble.

It’s not lust. When Aziraphale watches Crowley dress in the morning, when he sees the cock that normally lies against his thigh, when he watches the way Crowley’s lovely neck arches, it’s not sexual desire that courses through him. Crowley is beautiful the way a painting is beautiful. Crowley is beautiful the way light filters in through the window in the kitchen and, at that perfect angle, makes all the plants glow. What they’re doing now has nothing to do with lust, and everything to do with the fact that Crowley is perfect and Aziraphale has the irrational sensation that somehow if they fuck hard enough they might become the same person.

Aziraphale grabs Crowley by his hips and flips him, pressing him hard into the bed, and Crowley covers his mouth to stifle a moan. They arrange their bodies and Crowley hitches his legs enough that Aziraphale can sink completely into him, and then he clings. He grasps at Aziraphale’s back and begs quietly under his breath, pressing his mouth against his neck and pleading. Aziraphale can’t actually understand what he’s saying, but he gets the gist and he’s more than happy to comply. His wings ache when he releases them, trembling from exertion like every other muscle in his body. Aziraphale would like to let them spread, but they’re already at risk of knocking things about, so instead he brings them in close and tight around them. The air grows hot and thick with their combined breathing, and their world narrows down to just the two of them.

“Angel,” Crowley breathes, and Aziraphale sees that desperation around his eyes. “Tell me.”

“I love you, my dearest, my most precious.”

“Angel,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale thinks he might be crying. “Let me.”

“You are everything to me, and will be until the stars die, until it’s just you and I blotted out against eternity.”

“Angel,” Crowley cries, and Aziraphale can feel his legs tremble.

“You are so, so good.”

Crowley sets his teeth against Aziraphale’s shoulder to silence himself and comes, shaking violently. The feeling pulls Aziraphale quickly after him, and the sensation is blinding. He feels, briefly, like he and Crowley might actually be the same person, and thinks, in a moment of absurd clarity, of telling Crowley he’d inhabit his body if he didn’t think they’d both explode and that this feeling wasn’t unlike exploding but considerably more pleasurable. He can focus on nothing else, just the sensation of their bodies pressed as close as they can manage, Crowley’s breath on his neck, the electrifying wave of pleasure and utter satisfaction coursing through him, the fact that he knows Crowley, knows him better than anything else in the world because in this moment they might as well be the same person.

When it fades, he realizes that he’s collapsed on top of Crowley, who doesn’t seem to mind. He feels sweat on his skin, and tiredly wonders why his body would insist on doing such a thing when it didn’t need to. He feels the breeze from the open window, hears the plants and insects thriving, every heartbeat. Every overwhelming burst of love. Crowley’s hands trail gently over his back and he looks out the window, as if determined to watch the stars on their slow track across the sky and nothing else. Aziraphale suspects he’s looking out the window that way and not looking at him because he’s crying, so he says nothing and only kisses his jaw as tenderly as he can manage, and stretches his wings before starting to put them away.

“Leave them,” Crowley whispers.

Aziraphale nods, and shifts so he’s lying half on the bed. Crowley makes a noise like he’s disappointed not to be completely covered, so Aziraphale folds a wing around him. He watches Crowley kiss the part nearest his lips before he turns his head to look at his partner, looking almost ashamed. Aziraphale smiles as softly as he can manage, which only seems to make Crowley’s eyes water again.

“That went rather well,” Aziraphale says, and, much to his relief, Crowley laughs.

“It did,” he says, sniffing through his smile. “You didn’t mind the, ah, changes?”

“Not at all.”

“Good. I thought it might be - I just wanted to feel you that way, I suppose.”

“You don’t have to justify it. I might like to try it sometime, actually.”

Crowley makes a tired noise of agreement, and closes his eyes as Aziraphale brushes his fingers over his cheek.

“Worth the Effort?” Aziraphale asks, knowing the answer.

Crowley nods, and suddenly seems so small that Aziraphale fears he’ll curl into himself and disappear into the air.

“You’re worrying me, Crowley,” he whispers into Crowley’s ear, and holds him as close as he can manage, and Crowley turns his face against Aziraphale’s neck.

“Caught me off-guard,” Crowley mumbles.

“What did?”

“How it felt when you came.”

Aziraphale fights against the blush that rises on his cheeks when Crowley speaks, and can’t quite keep it out of his voice. “Oh? How so?”

“You’re ridiculous, angel. You just had your cock in me and now here you are, clutching at your pearls while I talk about an orgasm.”

“I have delicate sensibilities, you foul fiend,” the angel shakes his head and smiles. Crowley is buying time. He’ll let him - let him gather his composure and feel comfortable, let him hide his eyes against his neck. He strokes his fingers down Crowley’s spine and waits patiently.

“It felt like Heaven,” Crowley says finally, so quiet that Aziraphale almost misses it. “Not too much, it didn’t hurt. I just haven’t felt… I haven’t felt something like that since I was in Her good graces. I didn’t expect it.”

Aziraphale tightens his arms around Crowley and can’t think of what to say, so lets the silence hang between them. Crowley’s lashes flutter against his jaw his lips press against his neck, and he clears his throat.

“So,” he says. “Not Tadfield, then.”

“No,” Aziraphale responds, voice quiet and calm. “Not Tadfield.”

“Maybe a village somewhere quiet. The city’s fine, obviously, I just. Think it might be nice to be somewhere… quaint. Do our regular tempting and thwarting on a small scale. Just the two of us, for a little while.”

“Absolutely divine, my dear.”

Crowley says nothing else after that, and Aziraphale listens to his breathing change as he falls asleep. He imagines some cottage in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by plants and tall trees. Maybe a brick wall. Somewhere so small and secluded that it feels like they may be on a different planet. A concept that seems utterly dreamlike, and so unsustainable. Aziraphale would miss people. He knows Crowley, would, too.

He understands, though. Crowley craves comfort, and nothing is more comforting than the way the world feels when it’s just the two of them, close and quiet and cocooned. Crowley was content to sleep for decades, it figures that he’d be genuinely content to spend an eternity alone with Aziraphale.

The angel supposes that while it wouldn’t necessarily be ideal to be away from his most loved indulgences, he’d take Crowley on an isolated planet over everything else any day. 

When the sun rises he watches how its beams fall across Crowley’s hair and his feathers, and so he moves his wing away to let the light hit Crowley’s back. The demon stretches and basks in the warmth, and when he makes to get up Crowley turns away in his sleep towards the sun, limbs sprawled. Content to sleep in, slothful creature he is. Aziraphale smiles fondly and puts his wings away, leaning in to kiss between Crowley’s shoulders before he gets up and dresses.

The front door is open when he goes downstairs, and although the entire first floor smells of coffee it seems empty. Aziraphale steps outside to see Anathema and Newton puzzling over a garden that had once been rather unimpressive, and now was full of massive blooms.

“It makes no sense,” Anathema says, looking back at Aziraphale as he walks into the yard. “Have you ever seen anything like this? Was it Adam?”

Aziraphale blinks for a few moments, trying hard not to let himself blush. He never has seen anything like it, but he knows what happened. The plants must have felt his love as strongly as Crowley had.

“No idea,” he lies, hoping he sounds incredulous.

“Might be me,” Crowley calls from where he leans out the guest bedroom window, grinning his best, most winning smile. “Plants worship me.”

“Your plants have Stockholm Syndrome. Stop acting smug and get dressed,” Aziraphale nags, which only makes him grin more broadly. “Lazy thing. We have a twelfth birthday to go to, you know.”

Crowley rolls his eyes and disappears into the room, and Aziraphale huffs. He doesn’t sound convincing, and he doesn’t care. “Honestly, I don’t know how I manage to put up with him.”

“I can’t tell which of you is more high maintenance,” Anathema says, and Aziraphale looks back to see her looking just as smug and knowing as Crowley. Behind her, Newton only looks perplexed.

The next time they’re invited back to Tadfield it’s for a wedding, and while Crowley moans the whole way there about what an inconvenience the whole thing is Aziraphale can’t stop smiling. Newton might be pathetic, but they’re in love, and isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that enough to be happy about? Crowley only scoffs, and Aziraphale knows he’s all hot air.

He knows because Crowley behaves himself admirably well at the wedding, and he can see the crinkling lines behind the arms of his glasses that indicate he’s really genuinely smiling. He knows because at the reception, instead of telling Aziraphale to get in the car so they can go, he holds his hand out with intent.

“I only know one dance,” Aziraphale says, eyeing him with a brow raised, “And you dance like a drunken noodle.”

Crowley shrugs and keeps his hand extended, and so Aziraphale takes it. The demon clasps his hand and holds him close with his palm at the small of his back and they sway. Not at all in time with the music, which Aziraphale is painfully aware of. The only thing that makes it tolerable is that Crowley is inherently graceful in his movement even if his timing is bad. If he’s being honest, which he always tries to be, even if he wasn’t Aziraphale wouldn’t care. He’d still be resting his head on his shoulder smiling like a fool.

“You don’t seem very inconvenienced, my dear.”

Crowley scoffs, but denies nothing.

“And your plants think I have a soft touch,” Aziraphale murmurs.

“If you tell them I’ll never cook you breakfast again.”

“Liar.”

“Bastard,” Crowley says fondly, and tilts his head to kiss the angel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update today, folks! The Effort was posted about 12 hours ago.

The more often they make an Effort, the less of an effort it becomes, even though they don’t make the Effort that frequently. Soon it’s next to no effort at all, and Aziraphale feels like it’s a valid choice to stop using a capital E when he thinks about it. He also thinks that, if he was engaging that way with anybody other than Crowley it would probably just be getting more and more difficult. They fall together easily because they are made to fall together.

The novelty doesn’t wear off.

They have tried a wide assortment of physical combinations and Aziraphale finds now that he prefers a cock. He likes the feel of sinking into Crowley’s warmth, of Crowley’s wicked tongue curling around his length. Crowley doesn’t seem to have a preference, and switches often. He only prefers Aziraphale doing the work - slothful creature. Luckily, Aziraphale enjoys the labor. He doesn’t dare say that he knows how much Crowley likes the praise he showers him with, doesn’t dare mention how needy and loving the demon sounds as he begs Aziraphale to come.

It’s not lust. Aziraphale doesn’t become aroused watching the way Crowley’s hips sway when he walks. It’s not pleasure, not like he feels when a perfect piece of sashimi practically melts in his mouth. It’s not even really love, because that doesn't even begin to address the sense of completeness he feels. In some ways it’s all of these things, or rather what it is has components of them. Aziraphale doesn’t know if it’s possible to explain - it’s beyond anything Aziraphale has words for.

Ineffable, really.

Sometimes it happens when they’re drunk and giddy. Sometimes Crowley watches him, unmoving and expressionless like a snake, and then walks calm and purposeful across the room and makes his intentions known. Sometimes it just happens as they rest next to each other at night. It will happen when Crowley returns from his mysterious trips away - he takes them several times a month, spending a few days away from Aziraphale, which the angel doesn’t mind as it’s not much of a difference from how it was Before and he’d rather not see the extent of Crowley’s demonic doings however petty and minor they may be. He knows Crowley is too mischievous a being to stop doing the, even if he’s not required, and it gives him time to keep up with his accounts. And when he returns it makes the sensation of him even better.

Of course, most often, it happens when Crowley is scared.

Aziraphale knows enough now that he realizes that’s what’s happening when Crowley falls into an anxious frenzy. He’s just afraid. Crowley knows what it’s like to lose everything, what terrible things can happen to you along the way - it’s happened to him over and over. Some nights Aziraphale will let him keep cleaning obsessively, but not most of the time now he just draws him close. Lets him cling, and claw, and press like if he gets Aziraphale to fuck him deeply enough they’ll really become the same person permanently.

He thinks he understands what’s going through Crowley’s mind, finally. He feels it himself - not just fear of the eventual When of their most recent alliances coming for them, but a loss of purpose. He felt it himself, sometimes. After all, they’d both been designed to serve, and Crowley might have asked too many questions but that was still a part of him. While he had defined himself by finding ways to get around doing work, he still did it - Crowley still filed his paperwork, did his bad deeds, took his orders. Just like Aziraphale. And now there were no teams - it was just the two of them alone out in the world. Nobody to give them orders, no direction, no pointless paperwork. It was an adjustment - but at least Aziraphale has hobbies. Aziraphale binds his books and translates old texts, entertains visitors and glares at his would-be customers. He talks to Anathema so frequently on the phone that Crowley has begun to mock him. But as far as Aziraphale knows, Crowley’s only hobbies are sleeping and driving. The rest of his life had been directed by his obligations to Hell.

So it’s not such a mystery to Aziraphale why, on nights where he’s upset and anxious, Crowley moves with desperation and intent. That he moves like he’s trying to prove something, that he begs to be praised and to be told what to do; even when he’s thrusting deep into Aziraphale he’s only desperate to please. It’s not a mystery that despite the fact that Before they’d spent plenty of time apart and both had their own lives, Crowley seems to have no issue spending almost every hour of every week by his side and appears more distraught by his own absences than Aziraphale is. The angel is more than happy to give him that sense of direction.

Crowley cries afterwards, still, although most of the time now he doesn’t seem upset or fragile. Aziraphale thinks it might be a natural reaction to the Grace he’s feeling. Usually they kiss afterwards, sometimes they talk quietly and Crowley occupies himself by running his fingers along Aziraphale’s in intricate patterns. Sometimes Aziraphale reads to him as he curls up in his lap. Sometimes Crowley sits and grooms Aziraphale’s wings. The plants are greener in the morning each and every time.

“What do you think of the ocean?” Crowley asks, brushing tender fingers through Aziraphale’s feathers.

“I’ve never thought much about it.”

“Might be nice to live beside. For a while. Little cottage in the South Downs, maybe.”

“Big garden,” Aziraphale mumbles.

“Obviously. Near a village - you could open another bookshop. Lots of tourists to mess with.”

Aziraphale doesn’t bother to chastise him for even bringing up such bad behavior at a time like this and just nods as much as he can manage, which isn’t much - he’s simply too relaxed. The fingers on his primaries slow.

“Are you falling asleep, angel?”

“I don’t sleep,” Aziraphale says, but he’s not sure it comes out intelligible.

Crowley laughs, a bright and beautiful sound, and says “You sound like you’re about to give it a go.”

“Might try it out,” he agrees, but it just sounds like “mmpphmmm.”

Crowley laughs again and smooths the last of the feathers he was working on before he slips back into bed and under one of Aziraphale’s wings. The angel lets it drape, heavy and loose, over Crowley’s shoulders as he rests on his side, and turns his face to look at him.

“Why aren’t yours ever out,” he asks, barely able to keep his eyes open. He doesn’t know why sleeping sounds so good, suddenly - contentment, maybe.

“My wings? Dunno. You want them out?”

“Whatever makes you feel best. I just want you to be happy, my dear.”

“Sappy bastard,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale thinks he feels feathers that aren’t his against his back. “Close your eyes, angel.”

He thinks he hears Crowley say _I love you, too,_ just as he falls asleep.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Aziraphale doesn’t even have to try to act disgusted with this customer. His nose wrinkles of its own accord, although the source of his ire doesn’t seem to notice. At this point, he isn’t sure if the man is trying to flirt with him or just persistently trying to buy a Wilde that he is absolutely not going to sell. He’s been at the country for twenty minutes, and isn’t taking no for an answer. Aziraphale is beginning to think he may need to bend the No Major Miracles rule to dismiss him. He 

The bell above the door rings violently, and Crowley bursts in like he’s in a bad mood. He isn’t. Aziraphale knows those are usually silent and fuming. “Get your coat, angel, we’re going somewhere!”

Aziraphale smiles despite the situation. Crowley, here to rescue him again - impatient and cruel-looking, intimidating.

“I’m with a customer, my dear,” Aziraphale says, and the man at the counter looks uncomfortable.

Crowley looks the man over like he’d not seen him before, and doesn’t seem impressed. “Well tell him to bugger off, then. We have to _go_.”

Crowley disappears after twirling his hand in the air to signal that they should be getting a move on and quickly, and Aziraphale plucks the Wilde out of the man’s hand. It’s placed safely behind the counter.

“Terribly sorry,” he smiles, taking some pleasure in how insincere he sounds. “We’re closed.”

“You could still-”

“No, I really can’t. We’re in quite the rush. The business day is over. Off you go, now, that’s a good man.”

“Your husband is incredibly rude,” the man scoffs, indignant as he walks to the door. “Honestly, what kind of a shop is this?”

“One run by a rude man with an even more rude impatient husband, it would seem,” Aziraphale smiles broadly, ushering the man out the front door and locking up behind him.

When he gets into the Bentley, he leans over and kisses Crowley, who isn’t in enough of a rush to stop him. The demon smiles fondly, and the Bentley leaps into traffic and blares Mozart’s _A Kind of Magic_. If it threatens to jump the curb terribly close to the man from the shop, Aziraphale doesn’t say anything about it.

“Maybe,” Crowley says, going far too fast for a busy afternoon, “you shouldn’t have a shop. Maybe you should just have a collection. I’ve never once seen you sell a single book, all it seems to do is attract people you don’t want to deal with.”

“People would ask questions,” Aziraphale sighed. “One strange man with an obscenely expensive collection of books that won’t stop growing, who doesn’t appear to work?”

“Nobody asked questions about me.”

“You don’t have a whole shop’s worth of expensive books.”

“No, but I do have quite a lot of money with no clear source.”

“I’m sure people understand how long-term stock options work. You look modern enough. Sharp, you know. Corporate. Like very eccentric lawyer.”

“Aziraphale, what I’m saying is that I’m the answer to those questions. Your well-to-do benefactor. I do appreciate the restoration of ancient tomes, you know. And old books in general. Love ‘em. Big book reader, me.”

Aziraphale laughs, although not dismissively. “You'll have to work on sounding more convincing.”

“Listen, it’s a work in progress.”

“Benefactor. A patron, maybe, like artists used to have. Although - you know, that man thought we were married.”

“Did he? Wonder why.”

“I can’t imagine,” Aziraphale says, and then even though he knows Crowley is being sarcastic thinks _and because you live with me, and we’re joined at the hip, and you call me angel, and I love you desperately_.

“How strange. Well, I suppose that would work too. If you wanted to tell people that. Very believable explanation”

“Maybe we should. It would be wonderfully human of us.”

Aziraphale catches Crowley smiling out of the corner of his eye, and settles into the seat as they narrowly avoid oncoming traffic on a close turn.

“Where are we going, my dear? Assuming that we make it out of London.”

Crowley makes a wordless nasally sounds of dismissal before he answers. ‘Coast. Thought it might be nice.”

“The South Downs?”

“I thought we might, since it came up last night. Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”

“Not at all. Drive on,” Aziraphale smiles brightly.

The drive is meant to take about an hour, but Crowley makes it in just over forty-five minutes. He might have made it faster if he didn’t have to slow down occasionally to make Aziraphale feel less like they might discorporate at any moment ( _the paperwork was bad enough before, Crowley, imagine it now that we aren’t actually employed by mydearlookoutforthatvelocipede_ ). Aziraphale clings to the seat the whole time, mostly out of habit and only twice because he feels he needs to, but he’s thankful that Crowley slows to a reasonable speed as the enter the village limits. As they drive through, he smiles pleasantly enough at people to make up for Crowley’s cold expression.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Crowley sighs.

“Do what?”

“Act all… you know.”

“… Friendly?” Aziraphale asks, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“How else would I act?”

“I don’t know, just less like that! You’ll encourage them to talk to us, and then we’ll never be rid of them. It’s a small town, they’ll get all clingy.”

“Crowley, really.”

He smiles at an old woman walking her dog, and knows that beside him Crowley is sneering.

The Bentley comes to a stop in front of a cottage, which appears to have been for sale up until very recently. Crowley says nothing, and they just sit until Aziraphale blinks and shoots a questioning look at the demon next to him.

“I bought it last month, before we went to Tadfield,” he says, and his body screams nonchalance, but Aziraphale knows better. Aziraphale knows the tension in Crowley’s cheeks means he’s desperately hoping he hasn’t taken a step too far, that he hasn’t made a mistake. That he’s put off telling Aziraphale for somebody-knows-how-long because he’s been nervous.

Aziraphale doesn’t know when Heaven and Hell will come back for them. Maybe it will happen in a week, or a month, or a decade, or another 6,000 years. Maybe they never will - maybe he and Crowley will keep their heads down and be lost in the depths of some thick file and forgotten under eons of bureaucratic nonsense. Maybe he’ll sit with Crowley and watch as the universe comes to an end. The only thing he’s certain of is that at this moment, he doesn’t care. At this moment all he can see is Crowley kneeling in a garden, hands covered in dirt, dwarfed by the impossibly luscious outcomes of his own creation. He can see him sprawled on a couch as the afternoon sun filters through frosted window panes, dozing. He can see him grinning winningly at the neighbors, who he doesn’t torment too often or horribly but who have discovered some long-planned mischief that cannot possibly be attributed to Crowley, as far as humans are concerned. He can see Crowley washing dishes, falling drunkenly over a coffee table, dusting books, sneering at how long it takes Aziraphale to get ready for anything, watching lovingly as he finishes half of Crowley’s desert.

He sees Crowley’s eyes in the dark, watching him like they might have once watched him in Heaven, calm and steady and full of love.

Aziraphale’s voice comes out almost comically fond, but he can’t help himself. Not that he’s trying. “Crowley. It’s perfect.”

When Crowley smiles, it’s bright and pure, and Aziraphale can see him standing on the wall again like he’s just told him he’s given a sword away. Unabashed, untarnished by centuries of apprehensive rebuttals.

“C’mon, angel,” he says. “Let me show you the inside.”


End file.
